This study investigates the effect of the provision of information about environmentally friendly coffee on consumers’ actual purchasing behavior, focusing on the association of information provision with consumers’ environmentally conscious and socioeconomic status (education, income, and unemployment). A unique aspect of this study is that we utilized a dataset from a nationwide social experiment in Japan involving more than 10,000 vending machines serving brewed coffee. Although we found that in general, informing consumers about the product’s eco-friendliness stimulated consumers’ purchasing behavior, its significance was diminished after controlling the association between the information provision and consumers’ characteristics. In contrast, the sales of eco-friendly coffee significantly increased only when we provided verbal information to consumers in highly environmentally conscious regions, while there was no significant association with consumers’ socioeconomic status.

本研究调查了提供环保咖啡信息对消费者实际购买行为的影响，重点关注信息提供与消费者环保意识和社会经济地位（教育、收入和失业）的关联。这项研究的一个独特方面是我们利用了日本全国性社会实验的数据集，其中涉及 10,000 多台供应现煮咖啡的自动售货机。虽然我们发现一般来说，告知消费者产品的环保性会刺激消费者的购买行为，但在控制了信息提供与消费者特征之间的关联后，其重要性减弱。相比之下，